Queens of the Stone Age

American rock band Queens of the Stone Age, hailed in Rolling Stone as one of “the 50 Greatest Live Acts Right Now,” will perform at The Mahaffey Theater one night only, Tuesday, Feb. 4 at 7:30 p.m. The band will be joined by Chelsea Wolfe, an experimental singer/songwriter from Sacramento known for "drone-metal-art-folk" and gothic rock.Queens of the Stone Age (QOTSA) includes founder and lead vocalist Joshua Homme (guitar, piano), Troy Van Leeuwen (guitar, lap steel, keyboard, percussion and vocals), Dean Fertita (keyboards, guitar, percussion, vocals), Michael Shuman (bass guitar, keyboard, vocals) and Jon Theodore (drums, percussion).

The group, formed in 1996, came from Palm Desert, Calif. with a riff-oriented, heavy metal rock sound that has since evolved to incorporate a variety of different styles and influences including ZZ Top, dance-oriented elements and electronic music. It was nominated for Grammy® awards for singles “No One Knows,” “Go with the Flow,” “Little Sister” and “Sick, Sick, Sick.”

In June 2013 QOTSA self-produced and released …Like Clockwork, recorded by Mark Rankin with additional engineering by Alain Johannes and Justin Smith at Pink Duck, Joshua’s studio, in Burbank, Calif. The album is QOTSA’ssix album and its first to debut in the No. 1 position in the United States.

It has also achieved No. 1 status in Australia, Ireland and Portugal, No. 2 in the United Kingdom, Canada, Belgium, Switzerland, Finland and New Zealand, No. 3 in Holland and Austria, No. 4 in Denmark and in the top 10 in Germany, France and Spain, making it the undisputed best rock record of the year.

The introduction of QOTSA’s website written by food and travel commentator Anthony Bourdain states: “It came from the desert. What “it” was, exactly, is still a matter of debate.”

He then queries: “Are the Queens of the Stone Age a band? An association? A concept? The intermittent issue of an unhinged Carlo Von Sexron? The toxic byproduct of other bands? …Whatever kind of strange and terrible mutation slouched out of the irradiated California wasteland in 1996, it’s evidently still around. It lives. It breathes. It can’t be stopped.”

Chelsea Wolfe debuted with her album The Grime and The Glow in 2010, released on independent label, Pendu Sound Recording, followed by Apokalypsis in 2011. This CD gained her an underground following and recognition from indie critics. Her fourth studio album, Pain is Beauty, was released in September.